Lending institutions offer a variety of financial products. The term financial products refers to any type of financial products and services including but not limited to consumer credit services and corresponding credit card products, and banking/investment services. These financial products are directed toward consumers that require financial assistance with student loans, purchasing real estate, purchasing automobiles, and other personal loans. The financial products differ depending on the life status of a customer.
Lending institutions offer financial products to customers. The term “customer” refers to any existing customer which has been granted a previous financial product, a customer that has been solicited previously for a financial product, and a potential customer that has not been solicited or is not an existing customer. Financial products such as credit card products are most commonly represented by plastic card-like members that are offered and provided to customers through the lending institution. With a card, an authorized customer (cardholder) is capable of purchasing services and/or merchandise without an immediate, direct exchange of cash. With each purchase, the cardholder incurs debt which the cardholder may thereafter pay upon receipt of a monthly or otherwise periodic statement. In most cases, the cardholder will have the option to either fully pay the outstanding balance or, as a matter of necessity or choice, defer at least a portion or the balance for later payment with accompanying interest or finance charges for the period during which payment of the outstanding debt is deferred.
The spending power of a credit card (i.e., the total amount of funds available to the cardholder at any particular time for making purchases) is typically limited to a particular amount predetermined by the issuer of the card. This amount is commonly referred to as the “credit limit” of the credit card. The size of the issuer-imposed credit limit is generally based on “credit information,” including a number of non-exclusive factors, the most important of which are often the customer's earning capacity and the customer's credit history. Credit information is normally collected from one or more credit bureaus.
A problem with current methods and systems for offering financial products to consumers is that they do not take into consideration the customer's life status. The term “life status” refers to a customer's demographic classification relating to life stage and financial standing, for example: high school student, college student, graduate student, employment with salary over $50,000, employment with salary over $100,000, home-owner, head-of-family, retiree, etc. Thus, the term “life status” may refer to the customer's current marital, employment, housing, income, or educational status. As a customer's life status changes, the customer becomes eligible for different financial products. Currently, lending institutions cannot track changes in a customer's life status, and thus cannot revise the financial products appropriate to offer to the customer based on the change in life status.
Another problem with current methods and systems for offering financial products is that credit information is limited to those that have an established credit history. Young adults such as those in high school or college may not have any established credit information. For those with established credit information, the lending institutions may evaluate a “creditworthiness” (referring to the risk associated with lending or making available a credit limit to a customer). However, lending institutions do not currently have the capability to consider a customer's creditworthiness in combination with the life status of the customer to better determine the eligibility of the customer for certain financial products.
Thus, there is a need for a method and system providing financial products based on an evaluation of the customer's life status.